Free My Extraordinary Ordinary Life by Sissy Spacek, Maryanne Vollers

If you were lucky, or cute enough, the carnies would let you stay on for an extra turn while they let everyone else off, and then make sure you stopped for a long time at the very apex of the wheel, rocking in your cart, breathing in the tree-cooled air, taking in the lights below and the stars above.
    The Old Settlers’ Reunion lasted for almost a whole week. But the traveling circus that came each summer would only stop in Quitman for one enchanted day and night. The circus would arrive in Mineola by train, and the keepers would walk the elephants, trunks holding tails, along eleven miles of hot dusty asphalt to Quitman. My brothers and I would pedal our bikes to the great big field near the courthouse square to watch the spectacle. First we’d ride out to the field and marvel at the tall green grass swaying in the breeze and the quiet empty space—where we knew there would soon be a circus! Then we’d watch as the wagons arrived and the workers set up the big canvas tent. In the daylight, everything was a bit shabby and tattered, both the animals and the circus workers looked flea-bitten and malnourished, like they had really hard lives. Finally the elephants lumbered into town, shimmering in the heat like a mirage from the African plains. While the keepers watered the animals, and the performers put on their costumes, my brothers and I would rush home for supper. Then we’d rush back with the whole family for the evening show.
    But once the lights came up, it was all magic. The lions and tigers seemed sleek and supple, jumping through naming hoops while the ringmaster cracked his whip. The clowns and trapeze artists dazzled us as we stuffed ourselves with popcorn and cotton candy and cheered from the benches. Then it would be over. The next day my brothers and I would pedal back to the green field and find it empty and wonder: Had we imagined it? Had the circus really come to town? Then we would see the trampled grass where the big top had been, and elephant poop where the pens had stood, and some trash blowing around: proof that it wasn’t a dream, the circus had really come to town.

… 4 …
     
    Quitman was luckier than a lot of small towns; it had its very own picture show called the Gem Theater. It belonged to an older couple named Mildred and Theo Miller who were friends of my parents. The entrance was in a boxy storefront on Main Street, and the only thing fancy about the theater was the art deco sign out front that said GEM in neon letters and stuck out from the brick facade like a single feather in a headdress. Theo always manned the front booth, where we paid 15 or 25 cents to get in. It was tiny inside, with a black-and-white checked linoleum floor that rose up as it funneled you to the popcorn counter and the theater itself. My favorite thing was to buy a big dill pickle for 5 cents before the movie started.
    At first I would go with my parents, and sometimes I’d end up in the “cry room,” a place set aside for mothers to take their babies and young children when they acted up. As I grew older, I was allowed to tag along with my brothers to matinees. We’d watch old Tom Mix cowboy movies, or ones with scary dinosaurs chasing people, or Zorro, which I loved. What was going on up on the screen seemed so real to me that I believed that stuntmen who died in the movies were actually condemned prisoners who had volunteered for the job. I could lose all track of time and forget everything else for an hour or so, sunk down in the dark seats and pulled into the flickering magic world on the screen. I sometimes had a hard time focusing my attention on any one thing for a long time, but at the Gem I was completely absorbed.
    When Mildred and Theo retired and shut down the Gem, we’d have to drive to Mineola to watch movies in the Select, a bigger, more modern theater. Once I was a teenager, my date would pick me up at six-thirty in the evening, and we’d drive to Mineola to go to the picture show. We never